Posted by CP on 7/30/2001, 12:34 pm After that, I head back and he's still there. I quickly decide that I don't really want to be sitting next to another foreigner who seems like a chain smoker and whose newspaper will block my view for who knows how long until he's tired of soaking up the air conditioning, so I pick up my backpack and go to another table ten feet away that has no customers there now. Their trays are still there, as are two ashtrays. I stack the ashtrays but leave them on the table for no good reason that I can remember (maybe the trays were too full?), and take the trays to the girl working near the sink. After I sit back down, I see one smoker at my one o'clock right away, but she's nothing at all to look at and is looking kind of away from me anyway, so I go about looking at my newspaper. (Yes, another white foreigner reading an English newspaper LOL) Before long, I see a lady with short hair and a hat push a baby stroller in and park it at the same counter as the first lady, but at my two o'clock. She goes back to get her food and I don't think much else about it, except to wonder why she would want to sit with her baby directly across from a smoker. You just don't see women like her, with a baby and short hair, about 28 years old, not a young mama Japanese type (with red or blonde bleached hair and gawdy fashion) but just your average, nice-looking, slender housewife type, smoke here in Japan. But there it was, the ashtray on her food tray. I couldn't believe my luck. About 10 minutes later, after feeding her toddler boy in the baby stroller some donut and drink, she lights up what looks like a cork, king size. (That shop is kind of dark, and I was looking toward the front window (very light), so it made it hard too see clearly.) She was a serious smoker if unremarkable in her style. Just your average run-of-the-mill housewife with a one-year old baby who says, "The hell I'm going to stop smoking just because I'm married and have a baby." Gotta love those, and they are few and far between here in Japan. I remember posting about a similar sighting I had in the city where I live a few months ago. That's not all. A lady with about a 10 year-old girl comes in and sit at the non-smoking corner at my 11 o'clock. Immediately I classify them as priority zero for keeping an eye on. (I'm sure you all do the same kind of thing, prioritizing women for the liklihood they will smoke.) But maybe twenty minutes later another woman comes in, about 33-38, and she walks with her tray to where they are sitting. She talks with them and notices that it is a non-smoking area. She comes back to where I am sitting, two tables for two people placed together to make a place for four people. (One of the guys working there had actually moved the table on my left toward mine to make it like that after another couple left, leaving just a table for two in that place (the far left) then.) She asks in Japanese, "May I sit here?", motioning at the chair cattycorner to mine. And then I see why she had not sat with the other lady and girl although they had talked and were obviously at least good friends if not there to meet together: she has an ashtray on her food tray. Of course I respond in Japanese, "Douzo", which means "Be my guest" literally, or just "Go ahead" in more casual language perhaps. So she is sitting at my "table(s) for four", cattycorner to me and facing my direction (my back is to the wall, as usual.) Her friend and the girl then bring their food trays over and sit at the table for two on the far left. What surprised me is the smoker never moved her table toward theirs, which is what people usually do. But then, when I saw her smoking, I realized she was just being considerate and didn't want to be smoking right next to or right in front of the young girl. And she had seen the two ashtrays stacked up on my table with butts in the top one (I had forgotten about them, and didn't remember them until I saw them when I left some time later!), so she probably figured I was a smoker and didn't mind her smoking there. (Of course, although I'm a daytime non-smoker, I didn't mind in the least, but you guys surely know that.) She smoked all-white kingsize charcoal filter Mild Sevens if I remember correctly. No case, just the soft pack on the table. Pretty strong inhales and she blew the cone exhales to her right, behind and away from the girl. I thought that was nice of her. She looked nice, short to mid-length black hair, slender and a little on the short side, maybe a housewife (forgot to look for a wedding ring), not dressed to the T's but no sloucher either. The kind of woman I probably would have said had a 20% chance of being a smoker if Jim, PH and I were placing bets, so I was pleased with her smoking. After that, I went to a couple CD shops (absolutely no jazz CDs to be found in the city where I live!) In my next post, I'll fast forward to the second place Jim, PH and I went to. That will be Part 2 if you're keeping track.
I need to go back a bit. I arrived in Hiroshima at about 10:30 Saturday morning. We had arranged to meet at 1 p.m., so I took care of some shopping, buying a new flash for my Nikon and some cigars from a tobacco shop I discovered on the net. (Was very disappointed with their selection, but ended up getting five non-Cubans that I had never seen before.) Saturday was hotter than ****, so after doing all this walking and taxi riding I was ready for a break. I go back towards the main shopping area, where we would meet later. About five blocks away, I stop in at a coffee shop chain restaurant. I immediately spot an older white man with a ponytail, reading a newspaper and smoking what turned out to be Kents. I didn't really see anywhere else to sit at the time, so I put my backpack at the table next to his and go back to get my food and drink.
Message Thread:
« Back to thread